


dog days, bloody hands

by Kyhariel



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Gen, Gratuitous Violence, and it's just one oc, inspired by hotline miami, really the whole crew shows up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27933241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyhariel/pseuds/Kyhariel
Summary: summer in los santos takes it's toll
Kudos: 4





	dog days, bloody hands

**Author's Note:**

> yes, yes, i know who appears in this, i hope you can all use the exclude function  
> also this was written in like august/september of 2019  
> i've considered rewriting this to remove the oc but i also don't quite - care?  
> oh and if you know hotline miami, you know where this is going

“Hello. Do you know why you’re here?”  
He was standing in his own living room, facing the couch. Sitting on the couch was the Vagabond, in his whole get-up, the leather jacket with the blue shoulders and his black skull mask.  
It made no sense. He was the Vagabond, not whoever was sitting on his couch – had someone stolen his clothes?  
“Who are you?”  
The Vagabond leaned forward. “I thought that was quite clear.”  
“You’re not me, you can’t be.”  
“But I am you, aren’t I? How else am I here? But this does not answer why I am here...”  
He only now noticed that the sky outside was blood red, glinting off the hunting knife suddenly in the Vagabond’s hands.  
“You’ll want to wake up, not just from this,” the Vagabond waved the knife around, as if to indicate everything around him, “and I have four questions for you that might help.  
Question number one: Do you like hurting other people?  
Question number two: Who are leaving messages on your answering machine?  
Question number three: Where are you right now?  
And the final question: Why are we having this conversation?”  
The Vagabond stood up, but he couldn’t move, was frozen to his spot and then the knife was in his hands and there was blood covering it, not just the light from outside, but warm liquid running down his arms, dripping to the floor, collecting around his feet and it wasn’t stopping, wasn’t stopping wasnt stopping-  
He woke up to normal, orange tinged sunrise light in his bed, no blood in sight anywhere.

He’d met parts of the Fake AH Crew for the first time in the beginning of summer, the sun starting to bear down on Los Santos like a cruel god. So much so that he’d had to swap his signature leather jacket for a hoodie, not wanting to suffer a heatstroke while out on a job.  
(The hoodie had been a gift from a good friend, a simple black one with additional fabric sewn on to make it look like his leather jacket.)  
It was on a job in the late afternoon hours, verging into night, the sky slowly turning orange, the air hazy and hanging over everyone’s head like an executioner. His target had holed up in it’s office and let out a shrill scream as the Vagabond had stepped in, only armed with a knife (clean, but with a serrated edge) and a baseball bat (bloodied, viscera dripping from it). The knife went into his target’s head. His patience had burned out the moment the heatwave had encased Los Santos, he’d just wanted to get done and get home. But as he tugged the knife free, footsteps stopped behind him. He turned around to come face to face with Geoff Ramsey, self proclaimed Kingpin of Los Santos. Of course the Vagabond knew what Ramsey looked like, the mustache on his face was almost unmistakable, as were the tattoos on his hands.  
The Vagabond turned half back around, wiping his knife as clean as possible on the tank top his target had been wearing, completely disregarding cleaning his baseball bat.  
Ramsey was just staring at him, even as another person almost ran into him, where he was still standing in the door. Going by the curly red hair of that person, it was Mogar, the Fakes’ resident explosives expert, if the Vagabond’s sources were to be trusted.  
The Vagabond stepped closer to the door, waiting. Ramsey kept staring at him, but moved to the side, tugging Mogar with him, letting the Vagabond leave the room. He shouldered the bat, not caring about the blood and innards soaking into his hoodie. As he almost sauntered down the hall, knowing Ramsey and Mogar were staring after him, he had to keep himself from whistling.  
Mogar was hissing something at Ramsey, but the Vagabond paid it no mind as he left.

The heat was relentless, the sun still burning Los Santos to a crisp a week later, movement in the city still slowed to a halt, because nobody wanted to be outside, with good reason. But some people still wanted other people very dead and so the Vagabond had another job lined up. Another easy job – go in, kill everyone in sight, get out. The kind of job the Vagabond had become infamous for, taking down a dozen men and walking out without a single scrape. (Not quite true, he’d been hurt plenty, but it helped his reputation to make people believe he was invincible.)  
So, he took the bat (still bloodstained) with him again. It wasn’t his favored type of weapon at all, but something about bashing open skulls in the oppressive weather felt right. Maybe the heat was driving him slowly insane. (Or more insane than he already was, with more blood on his hands than could keep track of.)  
It was early in the morning when the Vagabond entered the house he was supposed to ‘clean’, sun not quite risen yet, the heat lingering on the edges of the cold night, waiting to pounce on everything like a rabid cat. He was on the very edge of Los Santos, out where nobody quite gave a shit what you were doing.  
Half an hour later, he walked back out, his clothes stained and the bat dripping. His mask also had gotten some blood splatter, but it wasn’t quite as visible against the black latex of it.  
On the opposite side of the street, someone was watching him. The person was rail thin, wearing jeans shorts, a pink tank top and an open shirt above that. Gaudy golden sunglasses covered his eyes. Light brown hair stuck up from his head and he was grinning.  
If the Vagabond remembered correctly, that had to be the Fakes’ Golden Boy, their hacker and frontman. Not the person they’d send if they wanted him dead. The Golden Boy raised his hand – empty – and waved at the Vagabond.  
The Vagabond waved back. It was only polite, wasn’t it?  
The Golden Boy grinned and got into his car (a purple minivan, somehow he’d expected the Golden Boy to drive something a lot flashier), driving away.

Much later that same day, the Vagabond sat on the end of one of Los Santos’ piers, eating pizza. He’d ditched the mask in favor of face paint, so he could actually eat and keep his identity safe.  
After the job this morning, he’d went to pick up the rest of his payment. (Still bloodstained. Helped his reputation.) Then, back home for a shower and to hole up in front of a fan for the worst of the heat. Only when the sun had begun to set had he gone out to get food.  
Which lead to the pier and a skinny kid sitting down next to him, stealing a slice of his pizza. The Vagabond looked up and saw the Golden Boy, happily eating.  
“I’ve killed people for less,” the Vagabond said.  
The Golden Boy swallowed his mouthful pizza and replied: “You kill me and Rimmy Tim’ll put a bullet in your skull.” And then fished a phone (cracked screen, but top of the line) out of his pocket, unlocked it one handed and held it out to the Vagabond.  
The screen showed a picture, haphazardly taken through a scope. It showed the Vagabond’s back.  
He turned around and waved at where the sniper should be, atop one of the many shops littering the beachfront. A scope glinted in the dying sunlight.  
“My boss wants to hire you,” the Golden Boy said.  
The Vagabond raised an eyebrow. “I have a phone, you know.”  
“He thought an invitation in person might me more interesting.”  
“Hm.” The Vagabond took another slice of pizza and kept eating.  
“We would like some support for our next heist. Intimidation and all that.” Then, the man pulled a business card out of the breast pocket of his shirt, handing it to the Vagabond.  
One side had only a phone number printed on, the other one had some more details scribbled on with pen – an address and a time.  
“Tomorrow, if you wanna.” And with that, the Golden Boy got up and sauntered away.  
The Vagabond stayed on the pier, watching the sunset.

The next day found him in a rundown office on the very edge of downtown, early in the morning and in his full regalia. After all, it was his first official meeting with the Fakes. Truth be told, he’d been interested in them for quite a while now, at the start just to see if they’d survive their own idiocy. Which they did, again and again, until the Vagabond was more keeping an eye on them to see what completely off the rails thing they had planned next.  
His fingers itched to see what their planning was like, if they planned at all.  
It was bound to be more interesting than the routine he’d built for himself.  
And so he sat opposite Geoff Ramsey, with Mogar and Rimmy Tim flanking the man.  
“So, we want you to help steal a snack machine.”  
For a moment, Ryan worried that he wasn’t actually standing across from one of the most powerful men in Los Santos and was instead back in his apartment, having a heat-induced fever dream.  
“A.. snack machine?” Ryan asked, unsure if he’d heard right.  
Ramsey nodded.  
Mogar and Rimmy Tim showed no reaction, no surprise, as if that was a totally normal thing to request from the Vagabond, Los Santos’ most feared mercenary, usually hired because he was very good at intimidating and killing people. And sure, he was pretty good at breaking and entering unseen, too, but a snack machine? When they could just go to the store and y’know, buy the very same snacks for much, much cheaper.  
If that’s what they really wanted the Vagabond for, these were going to be some very expensive snacks.

He shouldn’t have assumed the Fakes wouldn’t do something as utterly ridiculous as steal a snack machine from the Los Santos carnival just because they could. Though, it turned out, they had hired the Vagabond to be intimidating, after all. To scare civilians off the pier. Because the Fakes didn’t want them to turn into collateral damage.  
Duh.

A week later, he got a call from Ramsey again.  
_“So, uh, we wanna steal some go-karts, you in? 10k upfront.”_  
“Those are some expensive karts.”  
_“We’ll, it’s gonna be worth it.”_

It didn’t escape the Vagabond that they’ve stolen exactly six karts. Or that there was no vehicle nearby that could feasibly transport them off. Or the way the Golden Boy casually, almost nonchalantly handed him a black motorcycle helmet. Seemed like someone forgot to brief him on part of their plan (not that he had asked, wanting to see what the crew had planned).  
Everybody picked a kart and then the Vagabond cleared his throat. The Fakes whipped around at him in unison, expressions between outright fear (Golden Boy) and daring him to do something (Mogar).  
“What, exactly, is your plan here?”  
“We are gonna race them! Down to a safehouse in La Mesa,” Rimmy Tim explained.  
“You don’t have to, of course-” Jack added, but the Vagabond had already turned around and replaced his mask with the helmet he’d been given.  
Jack sighed and rattled off an address, with everyone getting into one of the karts.  
And honestly, despite being one of the more ridiculous things he’d do this summer, the Vagabond wasn’t going to lose.

“Why am I doing this,” the Vagabond asked, picking at the food in front of him.  
“Because you can’t keep up your lone wolf act for all eternity,” Flare replied, sitting opposite him, working on devouring their own food.  
They were in the back of a hole in the wall kebab store, barely large enough for the four tables shoved into it. Flare always insisted this store made the best whatever they were eating. (They had explained once, but he hadn’t listened. It was sliced meat and half a salad shoved into half a flatbread, though.)  
“But I have you,” he protested.  
Flare looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “I just do way too much shopping for you. Speaking of- got your grocery list?”  
Pouting, the Vagabond handed over a folded piece of paper. Flare put down their food and pulled out a pen, unfolding the paper and making notes next to what the Vagabond had written. Until they reached the end and looked back up at him.  
“When I said ‘shopping’ I didn’t mean that literally. You can get masks at every fuckin’ halloween store.”  
“But there’s something poetic about getting it with everything else.” And he was grinning.  
“You dramatic bastard. Fine. You’ll get your fucking cow mask.” They took a picture and handed back the list, now with prices attached to everything and a total scrawled on the bottom. It came up to just about two grand – a very good price for what he’d be getting. “Acceptable.”  
“Acceptable!? I’m cutting you some of the best deals in Los Santos and that’s just acceptable?” Flare huffed and slunk into their chair, arms crossed in front of their chest.  
“Hmm. Thank you. You’ll get your money like usual.” Which meant that it would just show up in Flare’s apartment in the next couple of days, because the Vagabond was an asshole that loved scaring people. He pulled the black surgical mask around his neck back up to cover his lower face. It had a cartoon cat nose and mouth printed on it, with tiny, pointed teeth seemingly sticking out of the mouth. Flare, as they had upon seeing the mask the first time half an hour ago, lost it, giggling at the sight of one of Los Santos’ most dangerous men with something like that covering his face.  
“Go,” Flare said, trying to stifle their giggles, “I’ll pay for you.”  
The Vagabond nodded in acknowledgment and left.

A week later, while picking up the stuff Flare had gotten (hidden out in an abandoned building on the edge of Los Santos. It was more convenient for the both of them) he got a message.  
It was from a contact he’d saved as a crown emoji – Geoff Ramsey.  
_Want to hire you. Need meeting asap._  
The Vagabond texted back an address and instructions to meet him there in two hours – more than enough time to stash the stuff from Flare, prepare for the sudden meeting and actually get there on time.  
He heaved the duffle bag Flare had left up on a positively ancient table, to check if nothing had been forgotten. He unzipped it and found himself staring into the dead black eyes of a rubber cow mask, carefully placed on top of everything else. And it looked exactly like the mask he’d ditched years ago. Maybe there weren’t that many companies producing high-quality rubber animal masks. But he didn’t pull it out of the bag, didn’t try it on to see if it still fit the same. Instead, he zipped the bag up again, trusting Flare to have gotten everything if they’d honored his request for the mask.  
After all, he had a meeting to get to.

“We’ve been attacked,” Ramsey started with, as if the Vagabond was part of the Fakes and not just about to be hired. Though, Ramsey was looking more serious than the last two times the Vagabond had seen him, the ever-present rings beneath his eyes darker, his posture rigid. Maybe the Vagabond was about to be hired for his first actual job for the Fakes, one that would involve things he was usually hired for and not something that seemed like it was designed from keeping the Fakes from getting bored.  
“Vagos thought he could hurt one of my people.”  
For some unfathomable reason, there’s a pang of worry in the Vagabond’s chest. Had Vagos attacked anyone he knew? Anyone of the main crew? But he couldn’t voice these concerns, because he didn’t care about the Fakes, they were a paycheck like every other job.  
“I know what you can do. Send them a message. They don’t get to fuck with us.”  
And Ramsey held out a briefcase, which the Vagabond gladly took.  
Then, Ramsey turned to leave, which the Vagabond took as a sign that he had free reign, as long as he hurt the Vagos. It was nice to have a bit of freedom with his work. Been a while.  
He liked being creative when he was sent to fuck people up.

He’d debated putting on the cow mask and going to fucking town on Vagos to send a message, but Ramsey had hired the Vagabond and the Vagabond he would get, in all his creepy, precise and bloody glory. Besides, the days Edgar had terrorized the east coast were long over and he didn’t quite want to resurrect him on the west coast yet. He’d gotten the mask purely out of nostalgia, because of the way he disliked baseball bats as weapons but still swung them with deadly precision born out of the nights he’d spent practicing.  
He took a day (hot and miserable as it was, the air thick like molasses with heat) and scoped out one of the smaller bases of the Vagos, with only a handful members going in and out. Small enough to not (immediately) start a war, but large enough to seriously piss someone off.  
The lone guard was quickly taken care of, hadn’t even noticed the Vagabond approaching from behind and really, Vagos should get some better guards if they had their backs so invitingly open. The guard tried to trash, get around and fire his gun at the Vagabond, but he just twisted with him, tugging the first knife free from the ribs he’d lodged it in between, to drag it across the guard’s neck. Shortly after, the man went slack in the Vagabond’s arms and he lowered him to the ground, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention by dropping a body on the ground.  
Getting inside the base was as easy as lifting the keys from the guard and unlocking the front door, even though it was kind of anticlimactic.  
Clearing the house was almost routine, the fun part came when he was down to the last body. He was hired to send a message, so that he did – he bled the last person in the house and used that blood to be artistic.  
On one of the walls, he drew the logo of the Fakes, the rubber duck surrounded by the circle broken into four equal parts. On another, he drew a (significantly smaller) skull, just to leave his calling card. Maybe Vagos wanted to hire him to get back at the Fakes after this.  
...Not that he would take a job from them, now that he was thinking about it. He wanted to tell himself that it was because the Vagos were idiots and would likely try to double cross him or cheat him out on payment, but the actual answer was much different. He liked the Fakes and their shenanigans too much.  
Then, he neatly aligned the six corpses he’d made this night under the Fakes’ logo. For good measure, he poked out the eyes of the guard. And cut off his ears. Not that he had used either. The Vagabond stepped back and regarded his work. The room was liberally bloodstained, even disregarding the artwork on the walls. Dragging in six corpses certainly left trails. He frowned at the guard. It almost seemed like he’d warranted special attention from the Vagabond. So he did the same to the other five corpses.  
To finish it off, he took a picture of the room and sent it to Ramsey. Proof of a job well done. Something he usually never did – word of his acts always hit the street quickly and the distortion added by word of mouth always made him seem a bit more unhinged, a bit scarier than he actually was.  
...He felt like a puppy wanting to impress his owner.

It’s not that he liked hurting other people. He was just very, very good at it. So good, in fact, that he barely did anything else these days. But he couldn’t quite pinpoint when this job had become him. Definitely long before the Vagabond. Before Edgar, even. Back in the days where his killing had been legal, sanctioned by higher-ups. He hadn’t continued because he enjoyed it. He had continued because part of himself had been missing.  
He didn’t do it because he liked it, but it was hard to stop something once you started to identify with it.

Click.  
_Hey, just wanted to let you know your stuff’s ready for pick-up._  
Click.  
_You okay? Been a while since your last order._  
Click.  
_You did good work. We’d like to hire you again._  
Click.  
_V, you know I’m here if you wanna talk._  
Click.  
_Uhhhhh, this is a bad idea. V, could you maybe come pick us up? We’d owe you, really, Jack and Geoff said they wouldn’t come because we’re idiots and you’re the only one I could think of-_  
Ryan blindly reached for the phone on his nightstand and accepted the call, Rimmy Tim still rambling on his voicemail. He was lying face down on his bed, so his “yes” to tell Tim he was listening might’ve been a bit muffled.  
Rimmy Tim instantly sounded happier, as if the Vagabond answering his call had made his night. And worse, Ryan could imagine the other man lighting up. He’d only done three jobs for the Fakes, he couldn’t get fucking attached.  
“So, uh, me ‘n’ the boys went out to drink and could you maybe, please pick us up?”  
Ryan groaned as he pushed himself up, sitting on his bed. “Where are you?”  
Rimmy Tim’s voice perked up even more as he recited an address and then added: “Thank you, we owe you so much, dude!”  
So much for not getting attached.

It had been a week since he’d last been outside. Time was currently passing in a weird haze, just as thick as the cooking air outside of his apartment. In a way, he was glad that Tim had called in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like he slept much anyways and the nighttime, cooler than the day, seemed just that tiny bit more real, more solid.  
He pulled up in front of the address Tim had given him and immediately saw the idiots standing outside, the Golden Boy hanging on Mogar as if his bones had suddenly become non-existent. Rimmy Tim was next to them, wearing his orange pants and a purple muscle shirt and how nobody had ever made the connection, Ryan didn’t know.  
Tim grinned as he saw the Vagabond leaning out of his car, waving them over.  
(For a moment, Ryan had thought about just throwing on one of his surgical masks, but none of the Fakes would recognize him, so skull mask and the Vagabond it was.)  
They all piled into his car, Mogar and Golden Boy in a heap over the back seats, Rimmy Tim next to him in the front. He gave Ryan an address but just kept talking, stumbling over his words and painfully, obviously drunk as he told Ryan about how Geoff and Jack are both assholes that wouldn’t pick them up and there’s little worse than running through half of Los Santos in the middle of the night while drunk.  
Ryan realized, then, that he didn’t know any of the actual names of the people he was driving. Nor did they know his and still, for some unfathomable reason, they still thought to trust him enough to try and call him in the middle of the night, if he’d do them a favor.  
He interrupted Tim’s storytelling. “Ryan,” he just said, keeping his eyes on the road. And Tim stopped talking, looked at Ryan. “Huh?”  
Ryan glanced at him. “You can call me Ryan.” (Barely anyone in Los Santos knew that name and only one – Flare – knew it was connected to the Vagabond. But Flare still called him V and he knew it was because Flare wasn’t their name either and couldn’t reciprocate his trust. Maybe it was foolish of Ryan to think that Rimmy Tim would, they’d only met each other thrice now, after all.)  
And Rimmy Tim grinned again (did it a lot when he was drunk off his ass, apparently) and simply said “Jeremy.”  
Jeremy couldn’t see Ryan smile underneath his mask, so the man just nodded and kept driving. Mogar and the Golden Boy were asleep in the back, unaware of the exchange of trust that had happened.  
When they reach their destination, Jeremy woke his friends by physically dragging them out of the car and Mogar punched him in retaliation, but Jeremy laughed it off. The Golden Boy was still clinging to Mogar, half asleep. And with the doors closed again, but the window to the passenger side still open, Jeremy leaned back into Ryan’s car and said “Next time – next time I’ll call before we get drunk.” And then staggered away, helping Mogar to get the Golden Boy into the building.  
Ryan drove away in silence.  
(He’d like that, he thought, even though he didn’t drink alcohol, disliked the way it burned in his throat and made him feel like he was losing control. He’d still like hanging around with the Fakes.  
He was deeper in this than he realized.)

Over the next few weeks, the Fakes called on him again and again, ranging from stupid, small stuff he refused to be paid for to an actual heist (that went sideways as soon as they entered the bank, but it worked out in the end) until Ryan realized that he hadn’t taken jobs from anyone but the Fakes in almost a month. They had spent a small fortune on him, too – while the petty thievery had been cheap, in comparison, the actual hits got expensive. The Vagabond was expensive when you wanted him to kill people, to send messages, but Geoff just paid him like it was pocket change and not for the first time Ryan wondered if the man might have an ulterior motive.  
He told Flare as much, as they were sitting in the back of the kebab shop again, this time without business to get to.  
Flare hummed and took a sip of the soda they’d been drinking – some brand Ryan didn’t recognize, but Flare swore it was good – and said: “Of course he does. He doesn’t want you working for anyone else.”  
Ryan hmm’d and nodded. This was the conclusion he had come to, as well. The Vagabond was dangerous – pay enough and he’d bring down entire crews, had done so before, would do so again and the best way not to face him was to pay him yourself. Even if it was just for thievery and jokes, the Vagabond never bit the hand that fed him.  
(Unlike Edgar, he thought bitterly, who’d just wanted to see blood running in the streets, no matter whose it was. There was a reason he was dead.)  
“The Fakes approached me too, you know. Want me to work exclusively for them.”  
“Their offer worth it?” And Ryan would understand it if Flare would take the offer, if Flare stopped working for him.  
“Mhm. Told them it’d stop me from working for other crews, but wasn’t worth dropping my private contracts.”  
“You don’t have private-” Ryan stopped. He was the only one Flare worked for that wasn’t a crew. They had told him as much themselves – and not only that, he was one of the few Flare would meet with in person, take weird requests like rubber cow masks for. Because while Flare didn’t give out their name, there was trust in this relationship in other ways.  
Flare looked like they were about to scold him, had he not come to the realization on his own. So he settled with a soft “thank you” and dropped the topic.  
While they continued to eat, Flare launched into a story of their latest video game-based exploits, about the newest game they had picked up.

Jeremy had started texting Ryan. It had started the morning after he’d picked him and Mogar and Golden Boy up at that club, asking if he owed Ryan anything. (He didn’t and Ryan told him as much. Ryan didn’t expect anything in return.)  
So, Jeremy had started to pay him back by texting him memes.  
And Ryan really didn’t know how Jeremy had come to the conclusion that the Vagabond would like memes, but they still ended up on his phone.  
Until Ryan found a truly atrocious monster truck in orange and purple, took a picture and sent that to Jeremy, asking if he lost his monster truck.  
What he got back was a _'thats mine.’_ and Ryan just laughed because of course the most hideous car he’d seen that day was Jeremy’s.  
This turned into them texting near daily, about all kinds of stuff (never their jobs though, even if Geoff kept hiring Ryan and he kept working together with Jeremy).

Click.  
_Hey Ry, the lads and I wanted to go out for drinks later today and I promised to call before we get drunk. Wanna come with?_  
Click.

Ryan had been on the run for a long time. Almost as long as he hadn’t just been Ryan.  
It had started with the agency, with the people who’d taught him to kill and infiltrate and be a shadow. Reaper, they had called him and he’d been one of the best of them. Until the agency decided that he wasn’t worth keeping around anymore.  
They’d sent him on a suicide mission and he only escaped because of his handler, called Phantom by the agency, whispering him an escape route over his earpiece, wanting him to live.  
He’d never gotten to thank him, though. (He had never seen Phantom either, only ever hearing his voice, bantering with him while on missions.)  
Ryan fled to the east coast, to Miami and spent a summer there.  
He wasn’t sure what had done it. The heat, the fact that he was on the run, that he’d gotten so used to murdering people in cold blood that he was now itching for it? In any case, he found a rubber cow mask – not wanting his face connected to anything, now, unsure if the Agency was still looking for him. And really, the baseball bat just seemed logical at that point, as far removed from his usual tactics it just couldn’t be traced back to him. And thus, Edgar got born.  
The summer months he’d spent terrorizing the east coast he barely remembered. But the blood, splattered across his body, his hands stained deep, deep red was a visceral memory he was sure he’d never forget.  
Edgar had to die when whoever hunted after him got too close, much too close and Ryan threw the mask and the bat in a hole off the side of an unmarked street and lit it on fire.  
After that, he drove across the entire country and started working in Los Santos.  
There, he worked under the name Vagabond and he was careful not to slip back into Edgar.  
Until the summer started basically cooking his brain, until he grew bored out of his mind, despite the Fakes doing their best to line his pockets with money.

He was sitting in his car, with the rubber cow mask on the passenger seat and the baseball bat in the back. He had his face buried in his hands but he knew he couldn’t turn back, he’d made this choice already, once.  
Opposite of the space he’d parked in was a stash house of a smaller gang. Nothing anybody but that gang would miss.  
He grabbed the mask and pulled it on.  
This was where he was.  
In Los Santos, in the middle of summer, slowly losing his mind again.

Two days later, he found himself in one of the Vagos’ safehouses, together with Jeremy, trying to steal back whatever the Vagos had stolen from the Fakes.  
The Golden Boy was on comms, leading them through the house. And it was all so familiar, wasn’t it? Being led through a mission by a disembodied voice that seemed like it knew everything. Hell, the Golden Boy even sounded like the Phantom, right down to the nonsense words he claimed were british. And there’s a reason the Vagabond worked alone and it’s because Ryan couldn’t keep his fucking mouth shut.  
The Golden Boy’s just given him the go-ahead to keep moving further into the house and Ryan, six foot of stupid that he was, replied with: “Got it, Phantom.”  
There’s a moment where Ryan hoped that the Golden Boy hadn’t heard that, or ignored that. He didn’t, however, anticipate the reaction he did get.  
_“Move, Reaper.”_  
The Golden Boy sounded like the Phantom because he was the Phantom.  
He was the Phantom.  
But Ryan didn’t say anything, because after all these years, it’s still ingrained in his mind to do what Phantom told him too, had saved his life more than a couple of times back in the day. And if the Golden Boy-Phantom wanted to kill him, he could wait until the Vagabond had done his job.

Ryan had expected a weapon pointed at his face, paranoid as he was, even though the Phantom had saved his life. But it was not what he got, when he opened the door to the warehouse Phantom was waiting in.  
He got an armful of the Phantom, who wrapped his arms around Ryan, pulling him close.  
“Still alive, you bloody bastard! Couldn’t have said something earlier, eh?” the Phantom said, trying his best to bury his face in Ryan’s shoulder.  
Gently, Ryan hugged Phantom back. “I thought- You were still-”  
And Phantom pulled back a bit, though only so he could pout at Ryan, his hands still on Ryan’s shoulders.  
“I’d have been next because I helped you, you mong.”  
Jeremy, having walked in behind Ryan, cleared his throat, tugging Phantom’s attention to him. Though, Phantom didn’t quite let go of Ryan yet, as he turned towards Jeremy, leaving a hand on Ryan’s arm.  
“Lovely Vagabond here-” “He knows my name.” “Lovely Ryan, then, and I used to work together, some years ago.”  
Jeremy just nodded and went to put the re-stolen ordnance he was carrying on one of the empty tables in the warehouse.  
“’s Gavin,” Phantom said to Ryan, watching Jeremy. “What?” “My name,” he added, turning back around to Ryan. “Reckon I never told you.”

Click.  
_V, we really need to talk, I’m getting worried here._  
Click.

Ryan woke up in his own bed. He raised a hand to his face, examining it, turning it around. There was blood dried beneath his fingernails.  
The sun shone into the room through half closed blinds and slowly, Ryan made to stand up.  
There was a trail of blood leading to his bed. Looking down at his feet, he saw that they were covered in blood. Slowly, without making a sound, he grabbed the knife beneath his pillow and stalked towards the door to his living room. He really didn’t want to run into there unprepared if work might’ve followed him home.  
“Aww, don’t be shy, Ryan,” called a voice from the other side of the door. Ryan dropped the knife, stood up straight. He knew that voice.  
He pushed the door open.  
Exactly opposite the door sat Edgar, spread on the couch, his arms on the backrest. Soulless eyes stared at Ryan.  
“You’re dead.”  
“And you brought me back, Ryan. Put on the mask all pretty-like and let me take over.”  
“Leave.”  
“Nah. You won’t get rid of me that easily. Not this time.”  
But then there was a throwing knife in Ryan’s hand and it buried itself perfectly between Edgar’s eyes and Ryan almost vaulted over the coffee table in front of the couch and frantically ripped the mask off, the knife clattering to the ground, only to-  
Only to stare into his own eyes.

Ryan woke up in his own bed. The sun was setting, the light coming in through his window already murky, but the air still too warm. His hands were clean, as were his feet and the floor. Just a bad dream, then.  
His phone was blinking and he grabbed it off the nightstand without getting up, going through the motions of accessing his voicemail almost automatically.  
Click.  
_We’re talking tomorrow or I’m breaking into your apartment. Five pm sharp, usual place. Don’t be late, V._  
Click.  
Flare sounded… tired. As tired as Ryan felt, at the very least. But even then, he knew they would make good on their threat, it wouldn’t be good form for a dealer like Flare to go back on their word.  
He could, of course, always call Flare back, but they’d just insist on meeting in person anyways, probably. They could be idiotically stubborn about their choices.

Flare was already waiting for him at their usual table, drinks already gotten. Weird soda of the day for Flare and diet coke for Ryan.  
“Already ordered,” they greeted him, instead of a ‘hello’ or ‘hi’.  
“So,” Flare started as Ryan had sat down, “this has been going on for quite a bit too long, hasn’t it?”  
Ryan furrowed his eyebrows, peering at Flare, “What are you talking about?”  
“You… you still don’t remember?” And they looked honestly a bit shocked.  
“What am I supposed to remember, Flare?”  
Gaining their composure back, running a hand through the longer hair on top of their head, they said: “Let me ask you a question first, Ryan, what year is it?”  
“What year – it’s 2016.” What kind of stupid question was that? How could he not remember what year it was?  
Flare looked down at the table and sighed. “It’s… really not.”  
Looking back up, they added: “Ryan, it’s 2019. You got shot and are currently very, very unconscious and you really need to wake up.”  
“What the fuck are you talking about, Flare?”  
“Ry, do you really think you’re Edgar?”  
“How do you even know that name-” But thinking about it- was he really Edgar? He remembered the cow mask, staring up at him from where he’d thrown it in a ditch, but hadn’t there been a body attached? Of Edgar, who’d gotten far too aggressive, far too dangerous to keep working with… He’d killed Edgar because Edgar had tried to kill him but Ryan had been faster, had defended himself and Edgar had been done for.  
“Ryan, do you remember?”  
“Since when do you use my name?” His whisper sounded almost horrified. The situation, whatever this was, was running away from him, he wasn’t in control, maybe had never been, what the fuck was going on-  
“I have been for two years, since I told you my name,” Flare replied. He knew their name wasn’t Flare, it being as much a cover as the Vagabond was, but if they told him – even if it’s been two years, he should remember what their name was – it was on the tip of his tongue, he couldn’t believe he didn’t remember -  
Eli. Their name was Eli. He said that out loud, more to himself than anything, but Eli smiled.  
“Glad to see you’re remembering.”  
And he really just was remembering, wasn’t he? Nothing that had happened had been quite real – the first job the Fakes had hired him for hadn’t been to steal a fucking snack machine. (It had been the second job, though.) It would make sense if nothing had been real at all, just his mind twisting it around to make a compelling narrative for his helpless consciousness. He rubbed at his eyes.  
“...How long have I been unconscious for?”  
“How the fuck should I know, I’m just a figment of your imagination, like everything else here. But it feels long, doesn’t it? And you should definitely wake up before you turn into Edgar, I think.”  
Edgar, right. The fucker. He definitely didn’t want to be like him, he wasn’t some half-feral serial killer, he couldn’t be like Edgar, he’d burn every fucking cow mask he came across once he’d wake up, but-  
“But how?”  
Eli shrugged. “Hell if I know. I’d have woken you up weeks ago.”  
They blinked. “No, wait, I have an idea – call Geoff and ask for a place in the crew.”  
“Why would I do that?”  
“Because he’s trying to get you to join them, duh, and you’ve been a part of the crew for three years now. You joined them in 2016.”  
Yes, yes he knew that, of course.  
“But still, how is that going to help me?”  
“Because of like, metaphors and shit. Maybe you joining the crew here is equivalent to joining them in the real world by waking up.”  
Ryan scowled. “How are you so sure?”  
“While I might not know everything, I’m part of your brain, dipshit.”  
As if on cue, Ryan’s phone rang. It showed a crown emoji. Geoff’s crown emoji.  
“Yes?”  
_“Vagabond, listen, I know you don’t do crews, but if you ever want to, there’s a place here with the Fakes, just say the word-”_  
“Geoff, wait a moment, please.” Ryan put his phone down and looked at Eli. “This isn’t how this happened.”  
They had their elbows propped up on the table and their face rested on their hands. They were still grinning like an idiot. “How did it happen, then?”  
“Jack reminded Geoff that he wanted to ask me something after a heist, we were all in their penthouse and then he’d asked me if I wanted to join, not that I just… could.”  
“You’re remembering, that’s good. There’s still something you need to say, though.”  
Ryan looked down at his phone. It almost seemed to easy to be true. Still, he lifted it again and told Geoff: “Sure, I’ll join you.”

Ryan woke up and stared at a pristine white ceiling. It didn’t feel like he was in his own bed and glancing down at his body revealed that there was a pristine white blanket tucked around him and his torso was covered in bandages.  
The bed though, was the biggest giveaway that he was definitely in a hospital room, or, well, the room Trevor had equipped like that after one too many Fakes had required surgery that would be hard to explain to a hospital.  
His mind was still fuzzy, he couldn’t quite remember what he had been doing – a heist, maybe? He could remember Gavin shouting at him, though he’d forgotten what about, there was just darkness and pain after that. And now he felt weirdly floaty, his limbs heavy but he wasn’t in any pain anymore.  
The relative silence (there was traffic outside, but where wasn’t in a city like Los Santos) of his room lasted only a moment longer.  
The door made a sound like it had been kicked open as it swung open and hit the wall. Jeremy walked in and Ryan wouldn’t be surprised if he had really kicked the door to open it, though it wasn’t damaged enough to actually have been kicked open.  
“You’re awake!”  
“Yeah, how long was I out for?”  
“Oh, about two days, but Trevor says you’ll be fine.”  
“That’s good. How’s everyone else?”  
“Oh, Gavin’s being a prissy bitch because he broke his arm, but everybody else is fine.”  
Ryan smiled. “Where’s everyone else?”  
“Uh, Trevor and Lindsay are currently holding them back to not overwhelm you. You did just wake up and are still on pain meds.”  
Oh, that would explain his weird as shit dreams. And why nothing was hurting, even though he looked more like a mummy than a human.  
Jeremy patted his arm. “Sleep it off bud, you’re looking really tired.”  
“Mhm.”


End file.
